"Back to School"

First Presbyterian Church
Peter S. Buehler
May 11, 2008
Acts 2:1-21

…each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

Do we believe that the Holy Spirit speaks to us today, that it speaks our language?

Is Pentecost -- the day the Spirit was unleashed on the crowd in Jerusalem -- a past event, a 2,000-year-old relic of biblical history, or is the Spirit as powerful today? Does it speak our language?

We just heard the scripture read in languages that are "foreign" to most of us; three were modern, one was ancient. We experienced the mystery of language, sounds we're not familiar with, words that to our untrained ears sound strange.
We recreated the mystery the Pentecost event in our own way; we got a taste of what the crowd heard on that unforgettable morning. But what surprised them was not how strange the languages were, but how clear they were. People heard languages from around the world -- from around the Mediterranean Sea, from areas of Africa, the Middle East, even Europe -- tongues from around the Roman Empire. Yet the strangeness of Pentecost was not some chaotic babbling of languages being spoken all at once, the strangeness was the opposite: everyone understood! The mighty acts of God made sense in every language. Stranger still, this Holy Spirit brought everyone together in one place, all hearing the same thing. The language of God's praises did the impossible: on Pentecost what divided and separated people was what brought them together.

Do we believe that the Holy Spirit speaks to us today, that it speaks our language? Do we believe that the Holy Spirit brings people together? Do we believe it is powerful, that its mystery is not in unintelligible, other-worldly, out-of-this-world impossible-to-explain things but rather in its down-to-earth power to help us do necessary and important things, bringing people together who would otherwise prefer to stay apart?

Do we believe that worship glorifies God, that it expresses our deep need to be in close communion with God? Do we believe that worship unites people, that it refreshes and inspires men and women, youth and children to live with love, compassion, and justice toward all citizens of the earth? Do we believe worship frees us and transforms us to be our truest and best selves? Do we believe that the Spirit works in us, giving us power -- even power to speak of God's mighty acts in ways that overcome human barriers?

Our views on Pentecost are important. I would go further: I would suggest that our views about Pentecost, what happened that day, shape our views about and expectations of the church in our day, what we are about as a body of believers, people who listen carefully and respond joyously to the Holy Spirit.

I believe the Holy Spirit is at work at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara.
I want to share with you what I mean by that.

First in a personal way. As many of you know, this summer I will be starting a Doctor of Ministry program in the area of preaching, through the Association of Chicago Theological Schools, a consortium of six Chicago-area seminaries, including McCormick Theological Seminary of PC(USA). It's a three-year program; I'm in the Class of 2011, which makes me feel like a little high school freshman and a late-blooming old guy at the same time.

As for where the program is located, I'll be on campus in the Hyde Park section of Chicago, about 10 blocks from Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan; as far as the calendar goes, the program will meet from mid-June through early July for the next three summers. So you'll know where to find me through 2011. I'll be in class from 8:30 to 5:00 daily, and cramming on the weekends. Though I look forward to visiting some great churches on Sundays -- including Trinity United Church of Christ, which has been in the news lately. I also look forward to some deep dish pizza, cold beer on hot Chicago nights, and at least one Cubs game.

Most exciting to me right now is the prospect of getting to know my 27 classmates from 16 states (CA, MO, FL, CT, KS, MA, NY, NM, MI, IL, IA, TX, GA, NC, VA, WI) as well as Ontario and Germany. If this seems like a diverse group, I would add that only two of us are Presbyterians, the others are UCC, Mennonite, United Methodist, Lutheran, Evangelical Reformed, Baptist, AME, Covenant, and various community churches. As far as I can tell, 10 of my classmates are women, including two of the four Californians. How many of my fellow students have gray hair which they have earned over 30 years of parish ministry, I do not know. I'll tell you on Sunday, July 6 when I get back. Really I see this as a personal Pentecost experience, being together with a diversity of folks from so many backgrounds, hearing their voices, their experiences. I know I'll be as inspired as I will be challenged.

Regarding the topics I'll be studying: the three weeks this June-July will be devoted to three core courses, one per week: Preaching as Interpretation, understanding the issues involved in speaking on scripture; a Colloquy, or group exploration designed to develop preaching skills -- including preaching a sermon to the class; and finally an elective on the apostle Paul, his letters to the Philippians and Thessalonians. When I get home, there will be studying on a weekly basis, along with several sermons that congregation members -- maybe you! -- will critique.

So that is some information about the program itself. But I want to describe how I came to my decision to apply to the program, and I also want share with you how I believe you are involved, how I would like you to be involved.

First, how it all came about. It was a Monday this past October. I was at home reading The Christian Century, a biweekly journal on church news and Christian thought which I enjoy, when I turned a page and saw an ad for the ACTS Doctor of Ministry in preaching program. I had not been thinking about going back to school -- it may have been the farthest thing from my mind. I had not been thinking about working on my preaching. I had not been thinking about the next three years. I hadn't been thinking about much of anything -- and then I saw this ad. It got my attention. It named some faculty members who were names in preaching I recognized and admired. It spoke about pastors being challenged and encouraged in their preaching. It showed faces of participants, diverse racially and ethnically, women and men -- along with a white guy with gray hair, so I fit right in. It gave a website to follow up on, which I did.

But at that moment I couldn't turn the page. The more I looked at the ad, the more I realized it was addressing me. I started thinking about the possibility. I started to get excited.

Have you ever had that happen to you? Out of nowhere a thought comes -- you're eating breakfast, or driving in your car, or reading a magazine, or lying in bed -- or sitting in church on a Sunday morning -- and an idea, or a face, or a feeling, or a longing presses itself upon you and won't let go. The interesting part of the moment is that you can ignore the thought or the feeling, you can disregard it by arguing its impracticality, that it's not a good time for a change, it doesn't fit into the plan you had for your year, for your family, for your life. It's too expensive, it's too risky, it's too impulsive, it's too different from the kind of activity, or commitment, or lifestyle you're used to. Has this happened to you?

I hope that when it does, you'll pay attention. I'm glad I did. I'm grateful for those of you who met with me the following week to discern if this program made sense -- although when I mentioned that it was a D.Min. in preaching, and you were immediately enthusiastic, I thought you were a bit too enthusiastic. Did my preaching need that much help?

I'm grateful to the session too, for your support and involvement and approval.
I'm especially grateful to my wife, Kati, who is always there for me.

So if, when something strikes you -- a thought, a feeling, an inspiration of any kind -- I hope you listen to it, and then share it with people you trust, people who care about you and will be honest with you.

Because I believe the Holy Spirit works through people. I believe the Holy Spirit speaks today, if we are listening. Pentecost was about wind, and tongues of fire, and people speaking God's praises -- but it was not about anyone being forced to do things against their will. On the contrary, it was about people who were suddenly free to do things they didn't know they could do until they tried. It was about people connecting with others in the most profound way, people coming together in worship, people glorifying God together.

There is no more perfect picture of the church, then and now! Pentecost is us; it is still us! No two of us are alike, no two of us have the same life story -- in fact, the life stories represented in this room would make a book few of us could put down. Even if we just each shared one story of a time when we were surprised by and listened to the still, small voice of God's Spirit: a time when we thought things were over for us but turned out instead to be a beginning for us; a time when we changed our minds about something or someone, even ourselves, because we believed Jesus wanted us to; a time when we started something or made some new commitment, not knowing how it was going to turn out but trusting that it would be OK to live day-by-day.

The church is God's people living out God's promises; the church is itself the story of the Holy Spirit at work in people's lives, prompting, suggesting, offering, inviting, inspiring, never coercing, never forcing, always leading as we listen to the voice of the One who loves us, forgives us, empowers us, and surprises us.

This is where you come in. Because I don't believe I'm the only one going back to school. We all are. To be in the church today is to be listening to and led by the Holy Spirit, both in terms of freely speaking God's praises in our words and in our deeds, and in terms of opening ourselves to the voices of people who speak differently from us, whether they come from a different place or just a different background and set of experiences. To be in the church today is to be ready at all times to learn and to listen -- to glorify God with our ears as well as our mouths, to share our stories and to be enlarged by the diversity of the witness of others.

In other words, we have to be ready to be changed ourselves, as well as to be agents of change in the lives of others. God's deeds of power work in both directions. To be in the church is to be in school, learning about the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

I'm very proud of the session of this church; I believe the Spirit is at work in these women and men who serve you so faithfully. Two Mondays ago, after months of thought and prayer and dialogue, the session voted to approve a major financial campaign for this church to help us realize our potential in ministry in Santa Barbara. We'll be telling you a lot more as we get ready to begin the campaign in the months ahead; we have much work ahead of us -- but for now what I want to communicate is that it was a Spirit-led decision.
A major goal of the campaign will be to fund a new associate pastor position to help us to grow in our faith, to take us deeper on our Christian journey, while guiding us as we work in and reach out to the Santa Barbara community. This pastor will be younger in years but not in faith and wisdom, he or she will relate to people in our community whose generation, and language, and background is different, perhaps very different.

So the historic Presbyterian motto continues to speak to us today: The church reformed, and always being reformed by the Word of God. As a church, we change, because we trust the Holy Spirit. Which is exactly what the session has done, and why you should proud that you are in a church where the people trust God and each other enough to make big decisions, the kind that inspire new chapters to be written in the book of life that we will hand to our children and our grandchildren.

The future is now. We are building the church -- a place for speaking, and listening, and singing -- a place where all God's people come together to praise, to grow, and to do ministry in Jesus' name.

The Spirit is speaking. What are we about to learn?